The Life of the Grasshopper 



sect and finding my efforts to hunt it fruit- 

 less, I was obliged to have recourse to the 

 good offices of a forest-ranger, who sent me 

 a pair of couples from the Lagarde plateau, 

 that bleak district where the beech-tree be- 

 gins its escalade of the Ventoux. 



Now and then freakish fortune takes it 

 into her head to smile upon the persevering. 

 What was not to be found last year has be- 

 come almost common this summer. Without 

 leaving my narrow enclosure, I obtain as 

 many Grasshoppers as I could wish. I hear 

 them rustling at night in the green thickets. 

 Let us make the most of the windfall, which 

 perhaps will not occur again. 



In the month of June, my treasures are 

 installed, in a sufficient number of couples, 

 under a wire cover standing on a bed of 

 sand in an earthen pan. It is indeed a mag- 

 nificent insect, pale-green all over, with two 

 whitish stripes running down its sides. Its 

 imposing size, its slim proportions and its 

 great gauze wings make it the most elegant 

 of our Locustidae. I am enraptured with 

 my captives. What will they teach me? 

 We shall see. For the moment, we must 

 feed them. 



I have here the same difficulty that I had 

 286 



